On June 12, 2009 he established the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force and charged them with “developing recommendations to enhance our ability to maintain healthy, resilient, and sustainable ocean, coasts, and Great Lakes resources for the benefit of present and future generations.” This task force was comprised of 24 senior-level officials from executive departments, agencies, and offices across the Federal government and was led by the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

The task force finalized its report to the President on July 19, 2010. Executive Order 13547 adopted the recommendations of the task force and directed executive agencies to form the National Ocean Council, which will be comprised of the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) (Nancy Sutley) and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (Dr. John P. Holdren), as co-chairs of this Council. The Council also includes the Secretaries of State, Defense, the Interior, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Commerce, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the Administrator of the EPA, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere (Administrator of NOAA), the Administrator of NASA, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the National Science Foundation, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Advisor and the Assistants to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Domestic Policy, Energy and Climate Change, and Economic Policy; and basically anyone else the Co-Chairs of the Council may choose to designate.

In an article by Henry Lamb posted on World News Daily on July 31, 2010 entitled Obama’s Latest Assault on Liberty he states “President Obama’s Executive Order 13547, issued July 19, further extends federal power, embraces global governance, diminishes the rights and privileges of individuals and brings the United States into compliance with Agenda 21, Chapter 17.6, which says:

Each coastal State should consider establishing, or where necessary strengthening, appropriate coordinating mechanisms (such as a high-level policy planning body) for integrated management and sustainable development of coastal and marine areas. …”

This executive order also intends to pursue the United States’ accession to the Law of the Sea Convention, or Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).

Dr. Lamb goes on to say “This treaty would give the U.N. power to regulate activity within our territorial seas (Article 2, (3)); it would give the U.N. the power to levy taxes in the form of application fees ($250,000) and royalties; it provides no benefits that the United States does not already enjoy. Yet, the Obama administration has set up this new National Ocean Council to convince the Senate to ratify the treaty.”

In a brief history of this treaty: back in 1978 Ronald Reagan declared, “No national interest of the United States can justify handing sovereign control of two-thirds of the Earth’s surface over to the Third World.” In 1982 Ronald Reagan refused to sign the Law of the Sea Treaty or send it to the Senate.

In 2004 President George W. Bush signed the treaty, which essentially would give the International Seabed Authority all of the rights over the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans and all of the oil and mineral resources they contain. The International Seabed Authority, created by The Law of the Sea Convention, consists of 155 (now 161) nations, wherein the United States would have only one vote and no veto. Of course, the United States would pay the principal share of the operating costs, as we do today with the United Nations, paying close to 17% of its operating costs. Fortunately the Senate did not pursue its ratification at that time.

The Heritage Foundation has done extensive research and follow-up articles on the Law of the Sea Treaty for those of you who care to delve deeper into this issue.

The Preamble to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea states:

“Bearing in mind that the achievement of these goals will contribute to the realization of a just and equitable international economic order* which takes into account the interests and needs of mankind as a whole and, in particular, the special interests and needs of developing countries, whether coastal or land-locked,

Desiring by this Convention to develop the principles embodied in resolution 2749 (XXV) of 17 December 1970 in which the General Assembly of the United Nations solemnly declared inter alia that the area of the seabed and ocean floor and the subsoil thereof, beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, as well as its resources, are the common heritage of mankind, the exploration and exploitation of which shall be carried out for the benefit of mankind as a whole, irrespective of the geographical location of States,…”

*“A just and equitable international economic order?”  President Obama said it in a much simpler way to Joe the Plumber, “Spread the wealth”.  The United Nations primary goal is wealth redistribution.

The signing of this executive order will impact the United States and its citizens on national security issues, as well as economically and environmentally. It will most assuredly create an atmosphere where everything we do will be regulated and monitored by the National Ocean Council and the United Nations, through the International Seabed Authority, and levies will be assessed for the right to fish, explore, drill and eventually navigate throughout our coastlines and throughout the world.

Here is a list of the 161 nations who have signed on to the treaty, through September 2010.  If the United States signs on to this, remember, we have only one vote, and no veto.

By the way, June 8, 2011 is World Oceans Day.  (Nice graphic)  According to the United Nations site: “In 2008, the United Nations General Assembly decided that, as from 2009, 8 June would be designated by the United Nations as “World Oceans Day” (resolution 63/111, paragraph 171).  Many countries have celebrated World Oceans Day following the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, which was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

The oceans are essential to food security and the health and survival of all life, power our climate and are a critical part of the biosphere. The official designation of World Oceans Day is an opportunity to raise global awareness of the current challenges faced by the international community in connection with the oceans.”

The theme for this year is “Our oceans: greening our future.”

I may just go fishing!

The “fair share” arguments insinuate that the businessman, the entrepreneur, the inventor greedily piles their money on the backs of the poor.  Even for those who don’t see the world this way, there is a pervasive feeling that because one lives comfortably, one should be forced to support others because one has had such good fortune.  While you or I may agree that there is great merit to being charitable, I think we can also agree at least in principle that it is immoral for us to force someone to be charitable — especially if that “charity” is a government-run one for a government-determined cause, which is to say that it bears little resemblance to a charity at all.

But more importantly, what is forgotten are all the benefits that accrue to society as a result of the efforts of the wealth producer.

For it is the producer who generates wealth by applying his skills, energies and ideas and taking risk, generation which requires the creation of jobs both within his firm and within the firms that make up the other cogs in the chain of production, the proper allocation of capital by investors to fund the idea and the provision of a product that society values.  For one to make a lot of money, all of these disparate parts must come together, leading not just to success for the the producer, but food, an education and healthcare for the family of the employee and all of the employees at the firms that helped in the production of the good, a return for investors that can be reinvested in other profitable ventures to grow the overall economic pie and over time better and cheaper goods for the consumers, those who solely determine which producers are rewarded with profits and which are penalized with losses.

Not to mention that the use of the wealth created in such a process will lead to the creation of still more jobs, better and cheaper goods and a further expanding economy.  The masterful process that brings together all of these different parties and aligns them with the wishes of society is the surest way to increase the general welfare — it is capitalism and it must be defended.

So in any event, when one speaks of evil wealthy people, and the idea that somehow they are wrong for earning so much and should be forced to give some of it back for the benefit of society, what is forgotten is that the wealth they generated for themselves came from a process in which they created wealth for everyone else.  Out of their own self-interest whether they intended it or not (and there are evil businessmen just as there are evil labor union reps just as there are evil politicians), they pay arguably more than their fair share to society in all they provide for it; for the poor to disparage them is to act against their own interests because it is the folks who produce the goods and services that create jobs that raise the living standards of the poor.

The only people who should be disparaged are those who make their living through the redistribution of wealth from the producers, by virtue indirectly of receiving favorable regulations for their products or services or prospering from increasing litigiousness, or directly by the socializing of their losses or receiving of unconstitutional government contracts.  These people do not increase the economic pie because they do not create wealth by using investment capital to produce what society wishes, but rather consume wealth confiscated from the producers.  Wealth redistribution is part of the zero-sum game that the socialists lament, capitalism which results in wealth creation is not.  Wealth redistribution is also undemocratic because unlike under capitalism where the consumer, i.e. all of society is king, in a socialized economy it is the government elite who dictate the whole economy, robbing us of choice and of wealth due to the failure of their central planning.

To put onerous burdens on the industrialists, the entrepreneurs, the businessmen, the builders, the creators is destructive to civilization — it is these people who should be most cherished by society, and most encouraged to flourish, because the benefits of their successes accrue to us all.  To punish people for their contributions will just as surely hurt us all.

Drawing upon Obama’s writings and history, D’Souza concludes that his policy agenda—so at odds with traditional American values and principles—is rooted chiefly in the anti-colonialist intellectual influence of his Kenyan-born father:

What then is Obama’s dream? We don’t have to speculate because the President tells us himself in his autobiography, Dreams from My Father. According to Obama, his dream is his father’s dream. . . .

[T]o his son, the elder Obama represented a great and noble cause, the cause of anticolonialism. . . . Anticolonialism is the doctrine that rich countries of the West got rich by invading, occupying and looting poor countries of Asia, Africa and South America . . . .

Obama Sr. was an economist, and in 1965 he published an important article in the East Africa Journal called “Problems Facing Our Socialism.” Obama Sr. . . saw state appropriation of wealth as a necessary means to achieve the anticolonial objective of taking resources away from the foreign looters and restoring them to the people of Africa . . . . As he put it, “We need to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive accumulation so that not only a few individuals shall control a vast magnitude of resources as is the case now.” The senior Obama proposed that the state confiscate private land and raise taxes with no upper limit. In fact, he insisted that “theoretically there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed.”

Like father, like son, says D’Souza:

It may seem incredible to suggest that the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. is espoused by his son, the President of the United States. That is what I am saying. From a very young age and through his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America’s military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father’s position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America’s power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe’s resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet.

D’Souza’s thesis certainly goes a long way toward defining a thread of consistency in the policies and priorities of this president. But “anticolonialism” is a heterogeneous package of economic, political, and—above all—moral ideas that deserves closer inspection.

It is clear that Barack Obama abhors the core founding principles of individual self-responsibility, personal self-realization, and constitutionally protected individual rights, upon which our historically exceptional nation was built. He shares with America’s adversaries the view that our individualist ethos and worldview is selfishly immoral.

Thus, the consistent thrust of his agenda, foreign and domestic, has been to humiliate America as an exceptional nation and to punish its exceptional achievers, by imposing the principle of coercive, egalitarian leveling on the American culture and economy.

Evidence for this objective can be found throughout his life, statements, and career. It is championed in the works of his intellectual mentors: his father, Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Saul Alinsky; in his personal associations—including the endless procession of anti-American leftists (Wright, Ayers, Jarrett, Jones, et al.) who have pockmarked his life, career, and administration; in his soak-the-rich economic policies; in repeated, blunt declarations from his hand-picked officials, advisers, and spokesmen.

Obama seeks to tax and regulate into leveled oblivion the exceptional achievers in our midst (“spread the wealth around”); to transform formerly competitive, entrepreneurial industries—banks, financial services, medicine, insurance, automobiles, pharmaceuticals, sciences, etc.—into docile, tightly regulated, corporatist public utilities; to accelerate everyone’s dependency on government (e.g., ObamaCare); to undermine, through environmental laws, economic restrictions, and ubiquitous behavioral regulations, the means of individual private travel (the automobile), of individual self-defense (guns), and of individual financial self-sufficiency (independent wealth); to gut America’s ability to defend herself (unilateral military cutbacks, unguarded borders, enabling Islamic radicalism, affording legal rights to terrorists, etc.); to betray vital Western alliances (Britain, Israel); to stop America from operating unilaterally in its own interests (treaties to erode national sovereignty); and to bow—both symbolically and literally—before foreign tyrants.

Connecting these dots and others, we find that they form a vector that points toward an overarching, unifying objective: to humble, even humiliate, exceptional individuals and our exceptional nation, so that arrogant Americans no longer think of themselves and their nation as better than anyone or anyplace else. As Richard Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru put it:

The president has signaled again and again his unease with traditional American patriotism. As a senator he notoriously made a virtue of not wearing a flag pin. As president he has been unusually detached from American history: When a foreign critic brought up the Bay of Pigs, rather than defend the country’s honor he noted that he was a toddler at the time. And while acknowledging that America has been a force for good, he has all but denied the idea that America is an exceptional nation. Asked whether he believed in American exceptionalism during a European trip last spring, Obama said, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exception­alism.” (Is it just a coincidence that he reached for examples of former hegemons?) . . . .

Obama has frankly and correctly described [his] project as to change the country fundamentally. On those occasions when Obama places himself in the con­text of American history, he identifies himself with the post-Wil­sonian tradition—with, that is, the gradual replacement of the Founders’ design. He seeks to accelerate it.

Indeed. With the possible exception of Woodrow Wilson, Barack Obama is the only American president to truly despise, at the deepest philosophical level, what America uniquely stands for—which is why he stresses that he aims to be a “transformational president.” He has complained that the Framers of the Constitution failed to allow for “redistributive change.” Andrew C. McCarthy summarized Obama’s frustration with constitutional limits on government power:

As Obama sees it, the Warren Court failed to “break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution.” The judges instead clung to the hoary construction of the Constitution as “a charter of negative liberties”—one that says only what government “can’t do to you.” For Obama, economic justice demands the positive case: what government “must do on your behalf” (emphasis added).

Fortunately, battered remnants of the United States Constitution still stand in the path of the anti-American president’s agenda of radical “change.” A clear majority in the polls fundamentally oppose the vision he would impose upon them. The president now faces a rising rebellion of millions of Americans, led by the Tea Party movement—a grassroots revolt that he and his media lapdogs have struggled, desperately but unsuccessfully, to defeat.

Barack Obama’s inherited dreams of transforming America from history’s individualist exception into a humbled, ordinary, unexceptional socialist state still remain unrealized. His campaign to vandalize the American legacy can yet be reversed—but only if we retain the will and acquire the intellectual clarity to make our voices heard and our votes counted.

The near collapse of our financial institutions and the overall economy and the misguided notion that a few trillion dollars of additional federal spending would return us to prosperity moved us in early 2009 to suggest an alternate approach.  We proposed in an essay published in The American, the on-line journal of the American Enterprise Institute, a fifty percent tax credit up to a fixed limit for every taxpayer who purchased any consumer goods anywhere in the United States.

Our theory was that a robust economic recovery would be fueled by increased retail purchases, and that every dollar of cost to the treasury represented a prior retail purchase within the American economy. This, by definition, would have produced an immediate increase in revenues to our struggling business and manufacturing sectors.  That essay and the positive feedback it engendered provided the impetus for the establishment of the Of Thee I Sing 1776 website, the goal of which has been to produce weekly, timely, and hopefully, thought provoking essays.

This week we return to the subject of economic stimulus as more and more politicians from both sides of the aisle and columnists from left to right have pronounced the stimulus a disappointment, at best, and a disaster at worst.  More likely, given the nation’s accumulated debt, the latter may be the more apt description.

So is there a Plan B, so to speak, in the works?  The answer so far, based on bills recently considered and rejected by members of both parties in Congress, is that Mr. Obama would prefer to double down on the discredited Keynesian approach which didn’t work during the great depression and which failed miserably through the recently “ended” (at least by common definition) great recession.  Tell the 9.5% of the workforce who are still unemployed that the recession is over.  Tell that to those who have watched the average time the unemployed are out-of-work grow from six weeks to 12 weeks, to 25 weeks to 35 weeks.

The number of unemployed is essentially the same percentage of people who were unemployed before the Administration and the huge Democratic majority in Congress, in the name of “job creation”, started shoveling our tax money out the door (or as some might say burning it in a bonfire).  And just why won’t President Obama, Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi wake up and smell the fire that continues to burn?  The answer can be found in two very telling and, now, very familiar utterances of the president and his senior staff in the early days of the new Administration.  The president said he wanted to “fundamentally change America” and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, when economic disaster was around the corner, famously said, “Never waste a crisis.”

Because not enough people dug below the surface to question what it means, “to fundamentally change America,” President Obama and his acolytes in the Congress set about “not wasting a crisis.”  To be sure we were in the midst of a major crisis calling for meaningful governmental action.  To prevent a complete meltdown of the world’s financial system and a seizing up of all interbank credit, Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, during the last weeks of the Bush Administration, pumped liquidity into the financial markets using tools the Fed had never before utilized.  In that effort they, joined later by Timothy Geithner following President Obama’s assuming office, did do a remarkable job and stabilized the banks and the financial markets. Fortunately, Geithner, as President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank under Bush and a key member of the TARP One planning process, was able to “hit the ground running” when he was tapped by Obama to become Secretary of the Treasury.

The stimulus package(s), however, is another story.  While strong action was needed to jump-start an economic recovery, having Congress appropriate an unprecedented amount of money essentially to be spent without guidelines was the opportunity of a lifetime for the political left.  Claiming they would produce or save millions of jobs, they swiftly assumed control of vast swaths of the private economy, something they had long coveted.  So where are those jobs?  Why hasn’t the private sector recalled millions of employees now that trillions of stimulus dollars have been pumped into the economy?  They don’t exist because the various, highly inefficient stimulus plans have stimulated no consumer spending.

The unprecedented federal spending didn’t work and, in fact, simply burdened the nation with increased debt.  Even the Business Roundtable, which supported Mr. Obama’s initiatives, (we believe more out of a patriotic instinct during a crisis than out of common sense) has issued a fifty-four-page report to Peter Orszag, the outgoing director of OMB detailing the Administration’s job creating initiatives.

Roundtable President John Castellani stated:  We stuck with that [Congressional] majority “through trying circumstances,” even “alienating many of our traditional colleagues,” and what did we get?  They keep “vilifying” the private sector!  And taxing it, and empowering unions, and ignoring trade.  “The time has come for a new course,” declared Mr. Castellani, a mere 18 months after Democrats announced plans to tax companies, empower unions and ignore trade.

All of this, together with near government ownership of the auto industry, the student loan business, health care legislation that, despite promises that everyone can keep their own insurance if they so desire, (how kind of them to permit us to keep our own insurance) is inevitably on a track toward the single payer system long preferred by President Obama and the left wing of the Democratic Party.

The government takeover or control of so much of industry creates an atmosphere of uncertainty, which, in turn, inhibits companies and individuals from returning to the risk-taking investments and new initiatives, which really do create jobs.

Why not try another approach?  The left is ever scornful of, and resolutely opposed to, Republican tax-cutting proposals, notwithstanding compelling evidence that such tax policy invariably results in explosive economic growth (think the Reagan tax cuts of 1981 and the Bush tax reductions in 2001).  The “rich” must “pay their fair share” they cry even though the upper five percent of taxpayers pay approximately sixty-one percent of the federal income taxes collected, and the bottom 50% contribute only three percent of all income tax collected, and 43%  pay no income tax at all.  The answer lies in what Mr. Obama really means about fundamentally changing America.  His vision is nearer to the socialist dream of transferring wealth from the most productive members of society to those less fortunate on the wealth scale … and the tax system is the left’s best weapon to achieve that result.

Thus, the so-called stimulus approach of flooding the economy with federal spending, the creation of tens of thousands of pages of new regulations which will stifle growth, the continued failure to legislate meaningful tort reform (frivolous litigation being a method to force major corporations to make what amounts to extortion payments to avoid the costs of litigation), all combine to accomplish the twin results of wealth transfers and the inhibition of economic growth.

At a time when the country desperately needs the purchasing power of its people to energize a hesitant and insecure economy, the Obama Administration is swiftly moving to vacuum from that economy trillions of dollars to redistribute according to its transformative priorities.

Prominent economist Arthur Laffer, whose writings inspired the Reagan tax cuts, in an op-ed piece in the July 8, 2009 edition of the Wall Street Journal, posited the following:

“Since late 2007 the federal government has spent somewhere around $3.6 trillion to stimulate the economy.  That is a lot of money.  My suggestion would have been to take all $3.6 trillion and declare a federal tax holiday for 18 months.  No income tax, no corporate profits tax, no capital gains tax, no estate tax, no payroll tax (FICA) either employee or employer, no Medicare or Medicaid taxes, no federal excise taxes, no tariffs, no federal taxes at all, which would have reduced federal revenues by $2.4 trillion annually.  Can you imagine where employment would be today?  How does 2.5% sound”?

To the contrary, in 2011, taxes are scheduled to increase with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.  The top income tax rate will increase to 39.5 percent from 35 percent, with a 43 percent top rate, a product of the healthcare legislation, due in 2013.  The top rate on capital gains and dividends are scheduled to grow from 15 percent to 39.5 percent.  And the estate tax is scheduled to kick back from zero in 2010 to 55 percent, with a $1 million exclusion in 2011 unless Congress acts as they had been expected to do starting last year.  Their failure to do so, leaving many Americans, particularly the elderly, in a complete state of confusion about how they or their estates will be taxed is nothing less than a dereliction of duty by Congress.

With fall elections looming, we had better keep our eyes open until Congress adjourns in July.  And although Will Rogers said “no man’s property is safe when Congress is in session,” concerned Americans better hold on to their wallets and pay attention even after the Congress adjourns later this month. The real danger may come following the fall elections. Many Democrats, whether they win or lose in November, envision a lame-duck session as the potential final opportunity, for many years, to finish Mr. Obama’s transformation of America from an engine of economic growth to a statist nation where the government has its finger in every pot and its thumb on every scale.

By Hal Gershowitz and Stephen Porter

Speeches and photo-ops, however, won’t change the fact that Obama’s policies are anti-capitalist and therefore anti-job and anti-recovery.

It’s important to note that the secret to capitalism is not all that secret.  It’s right there in the name CAPITALism.   Our system relies on:

• Step 1.  The ability of some to aggregate enough capital, i.e. save money, so that they can . . .
• Step 2.   Invest in productive enterprises, i.e. start or grow businesses which  . . .
• Step 3.   Employ people – people who  . . .
• Step 4.   Have the ability to buy things, i.e. purchasing power (critical in a 70% consumer driven economy) – which in turn  . . .
• Step 5.  Creates profits for sellers and . . .
• Step 6.  Savings – and the cycle renews.

The Left’s political policies, however, are sworn enemies of that simple and effective economic process.

Most notably, amongst those anti-capitalist/anti-job political policies is the heavy income tax burden facing American income earners today and the impending Pelosi/Reid/Obama tax increase to support their Big Government policies.  The Left uses taxes on the income earners in a political attempt to reduce the difference in classes and to raise revenue.  As with most government programs, however, it has an effect that is the reverse of its intentions – not only does it not reduce class differences, it results in the collecting of less revenues than otherwise could be collected- and nothing should be more understood than that when it comes to why Obama’s policies are anti-recovery.

For example, let’s say it takes $500,000 to start a restaurant (which represents a conservative amount in the cities of California).  If we assume two partners can earn enough in income to each have $250,000 to start that business – any policy that takes a significant portion of that money from those 2 prospective business owners and then spreads it, in the form of government programs or government rebates, among tens of thousands of people who don’t come together to start businesses, means:

• a)  that Step 1 (the ability of some to aggregate enough capital) and Step 2 (starting a business) will not occur, and therefore
• b) the remaining steps won’t occur either, i.e. no Step 3 (little to no jobs would be created), no Step 4 (no increased purchasing power for any meaningful period of time because the payments are one time payments instead of paychecks) and no Step 5 (future profits for future Step 1, savings). And without jobs, there is diminished purchasing power and no meaningful recovery.

The excessive regulatory burden we face is another prime example of an anti-capitalist political policy.  As if taking away savings isn’t bad enough, how about raising the cost of starting up the restaurant to $600,000 or more (instead of the $400,000 it could be) in the form of increased health care mandates, workers’ comp costs, ADA regulations, labor regulations and more?  Obviously, to everyone but the Left, higher start-up costs means less business startups and therefore less jobs.

To be sure, there are many other anti-capitalist policies of the Left including Cap & Trade, the proposed Wall Street regulations, skyrocketing deficits and more. All result in fewer businesses, jobs, and purchasing power and ultimately no recovery.

So, in the coming months, as the Obama Administration purportedly turns its attention to jobs, so that he can politically recover – see if he turns his attention away from his political anti-job/anti-recovery policies and toward economics so that we can economically recover – but I wouldn’t suggest undertaking a hunger strike waiting for that restaurant.

Americans understand that prosperity, true prosperity, is created by an economic system where strong dynamic firms with better ideas, management and motivated employees  are free to prosper and the weak are allowed to fail.  This kind of Darwinian economic system has allowed our country to prosper for over 200 years.

Americans also understand that the federal government doesn’t really create jobs that lead to economic growth because Americans know that any job the government creates  can only be paid for by increasing taxes or by borrowing money–probably from the Chinese.  Nor is there any need to remind Americans that small businesses are the engine that move our economy, and that small businesses create 3 out of every 4 jobs in this country.

On the other hand, there is an urgent need to help President Obama learn the basic principles of a free enterprise system and how jobs are actually created in a market economy, for he is plunging headlong in the opposite direction.

Even now, our President is unwisely erecting new barriers to job growth on small business by  increasing the heavy burden of taxes and fees on small businesses that stifle competitiveness and growth.

President Obama ’s plan doubles down on bad policy by increasing spending on entitlements and wealth redistribution that will further erode  American competitiveness, wealth creation and power.  The President’s misplaced priorities are slowly, and certainly, convincing Americans that Obama just doesn’t get it, and that Obama has no understanding of what makes an economy competitive.

Competitiveness comes from a strong economy, which comes from a strong private sector business community—especially the small business community .  Crippling taxes, wealth redistribution, trillions of dollars of debt are disincentives that make the United States less competitive.  Americans know that creating a system that punishes  the most successful Americans will not lead to economic growth.

Americans understand that there are winners and there are losers, that some kernels pop, and some don’t.  When was the last time the Kentucky Derby announced: “let’s all share the blanket of roses and the prize money and the Derby Cup–after all, we’re all winners?”  Not.

The Obama Administration may be filled with idealistic, clever academics and bureaucrats, but they know diddlysquat about creating jobs,  Ten months of the Obama Administration, 4.3 million additional lost jobs and a jobless rate of 10.2%  are all the proof American need of the failure of President Obama’s job-creation-pudding scheme.

Good teachers use every tool in their arsenal to help their students learn.  President Obama has had ten months of on-the-job (OJT) training to try to get up to speed on business, the economy and competitiveness.  But, the President’s OJT is proceeding slowly, too slowly.  Our country needs for  Obama to learn quite a bit faster if our economy is to prosper.

Barack Obama is now in the midst of a teachable moment, by the capitalists in China.  So, if the President, after docilely accepting lectures from the Chinese,  returns to the United States, smarter in the ways of free market capitalism, then bully for him and bully for us.  If the President returns to endorse the same, failed , big-government, wealth redistribution schemes combined with colossal debt, then he needs to be put on double-academic probation until his performance improves.